New Stadium required

[SaintsSeptember]

Couldn't you still just park at the Casino and walk to the MCG?

Yeah you can walk to Sydney if you have to .
Casino car park is pretty unique because you get of citylink and turn straight in, then pretty much straight into the tunnel when you leave.
Distance to the G is a bit further thats all.
You have to question why they dont build a proper car park with proper access there. ( Turning into Punt road is a nightmare, and in the end you dont want to be in punt road ).

If Its just me I just catch the train to Richmond, or park just anywhere. But If I'm dragging the family along its more of a hassle.

 

[pazza]

Whitten Oval.

Wouldn't need much to continue to fine work done there already, has the Sydenham train and 3 bus routes at its doorstep, Geelong Road and plenty of street parking nearby.

 

[R00StaR]

10 Melbourne teams
5 home games per week
2 grounds

5 time slots

Friday night x1
Saturday x 1-2 (wild concept i know)
Saturday night X1
Sunday X1
Sunday Twilight: x1 if required

Buy out docklands so smaller crowd game Vs interstate teams become profitable. No need for another ground. However if there were to be one, CBD area is a must for accessibility to most people. The government should pay 100%, they take AFL for granted, look what they lose on the F1 yearly for the 'economic benefit' and look what Tassie is prepared to pay per game.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

A regional stadium sort of makes more sense than a city based one.
But, as they found out when they bid for the soccer world cup, our country is very centralised around our cities.
The goverment really need to do more to build up regional centers ( Ie attract business/industry ) before they can grow enough to worry about this sort of infrastructure.

Hard to say who should relocate. The Western Bulldogs ( even though they are far east of the west coast eagles and the crows, and the power and the dockers ) have given up their old suburban name, so could feasibly go to Ballarat or something.

Its bad enough when a club called "Melbourne" ( that would be the capital of Victoria ) trains at Cranbourne, imagine if they moved to Warrigal or something.

Dont forget that with two more interstate teams (inc Gold Coast) with their own Stadiums, there will be an average of another away game each week for one of the ten Melbourne teams. So that takes a small amount of the pressure of the G and Etihad.

The AFL is clearly making decisions based on maximising the television revenue. All of the clubs contribute to the television revenue, not necessarily in proportion to the home game attendance figures.
For example I have seen many Port Adelaide games, but I've never contributed to their revenue.

Maybe the AFL should take a cut of the Stadium profits currently going to the clubs and give back some television revenue in return. ( Causing Carlton/Collingwood supporters to scream very loudly ). By the same token, is it a fair deal, that the Cats get to make a small fortune from their pokey little home ground. Maybe there needs to be a deal where they pay some money back to the AFL for the privelage of having a home ground ( like the inverse to paying a club to play a home game interstate ). In the end the AFL dont NEED to schedule games at Cardinia Park.

 

[madmug]

10 Melbourne teams

The government in this state takes AFL for granted, look what they lose on the F1 yearly for the 'economic benefit' and look what Tassie is prepared to pay per game.

The state Government have already sold their soul to Hawthorn, so theirs not much left I'm afraid
I suppose we could look for some coal seam gas & sell that to the chinks. That would raise some $$$ for North Melbn.

 

[finders]

Whitten Oval.

Wouldn't need much to continue to fine work done there already, has the Sydenham train and 3 bus routes at its doorstep, Geelong Road and plenty of street parking nearby.

Yes and it has Werribee and Geelong trains go through West Footscay station but the car parking would be bad.

You would find the council would block of a lot of the streets for residents only parking and most of the area around the ground is not very far from the Western Hospital which is already only two hours parking 7 days a week.

Whitten Oval to hold 30,000 would take a lot of work and as there is no room to move on the Gordon Street side ( the old stand thats now pulled down actually canterlevered out over Gordon St to get more room.) and I dont think anyone would propose to pull down the new buildings on the western side..

I dont know how you would find enough space for a stadium of that size.

Footscray in the last twenty years that they played at Western Oval very rarely got over 25,000 and then the place was overcrowed with thousands standing out in the weather at both ends of the ground and the toilets overflowing.

 

[R00StaR]

The state Government have already sold their soul to Hawthorn, so theirs not much left I'm afraid
I suppose we could look for some coal seam gas & sell that to the chinks. That would raise some $$$ for North Melbn.

Or mine the gold out of that last tooth of yours.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Yes and it has Werribee and Geelong trains go through West Footscay station but the car parking would be bad.

You would find the council would block of a lot of the streets for residents only parking and most of the area around the ground is not very far from the Western Hospital which is already only two hours parking 7 days a week.

Whitten Oval to hold 30,000 would take a lot of work and as there is no room to move on the Gordon Street side ( the old stand thats now pulled down actually canterlevered out over Gordon St to get more room.) and I dont think anyone would propose to pull down the new buildings on the western side..

I dont know how you would find enough space for a stadium of that size.

Footscray in the last twenty years that they played at Western Oval very rarely got over 25,000 and then the place was overcrowed with thousands standing out in the weather at both ends of the ground and the toilets overflowing.

I lived in Gordon St for a little while ( seems like a million years ago now ), I can remember cars lining all the little side streets for miles around, milling around looking for parking, parking in weird places.
Traffic would be bad too, Williamstown road, Princes Highway, and Flemington roads, are not on a par with a freeway for dealing with that sort of traffic.

 

[cappa35]

http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2009/05/09/69295_news.html

"The advantages of moving to Geelong could see clubs earning $30 a head at Skilled, compared to $7 at Etihad Stadium."

Still financially the best bet for lower drawing games in a Win-Win situation. North/Bulldogs shift 4 home games to Geelong on a year by year basis. They still are unlikely to sell out. They make 3x what they would make at Etihad, the city of Geelong gets more money to spend on developing Kardinia Park even further and increasing capacity, lighting, facilities (possibility of express trains) etc

4 home games at 30k attendance would be $3.6M. You could easily prevent the drop in attendance by subsidising membership costs or even arranging for free Vline & metro tickets for members travelling to and from the games. Hell, for $3.6M extra North could halve the cost of their memberships and still be in a better position financially as well as drawing bigger crowds to their games at the G or Etihad

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Does anyone know how much the clubs get charged for the venue, compared to other events ie soccer, rugby, concerts?
It may be that the real issue is that the AFL teams are regarded as captive tennants and can be charged an arm and a leg, rather than the competative rate. ( Its hard to think that the Melbourne Victory -when they were resident, would have even contemplated the sorts of deals that the AFL are on ).
I'm not sure what the AFL can do to combat that, except schedule as many games as possible at alternate venues. Its a long wait to 2025.

 

[Dont be a lemon]

We don't need a new stadium and we sure as **** don't need one located in Bum****, Suburbia.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

If you did the maths, I think you'd find its cheaper for the AFL to pay each club the difference between their revenue at Etihad compared to what it would be at the MCG, than it would be to fund a new Stadium.
New Stadium doesn't really make sense.

 

[juddy_Like]

How about you victorians build a stadium in a little small country town called Perth. Capacity about 60,000 - 70,000, similar dimensions to the MCG and preferably on a train-line. No roof required.

In return you get a...
Holiday out of Melbourne
Free access, 24/7
Training in weather that won't mess up your hair (Collingwood are now interested )
Premium nightlife of shit all closing by 12
And all your groceries done by 5pm

And btw, you will need to be good at cutting red tape. No biggie.

 

[im_a_lazy_sod]

Well those closing times would suite Collingwood - means they can keep their players in check knowing everything shuts at 12 likewise saint kilda

 

[Cudi_420]

I'd be all for a boutique stadium in Casey.

35,000

Melbourne can play home games there against Freo, Port, Brisbane, GC.

 

[millsy29gopies]

My options would be

1. Old Olympic Park. Collingwood's new training ground would need stands because we get more to training than Roos V Freo Make it 20,000 with Collingwood and AFL to split it 75/25% funding.

2. Skilled Stadium. Bit far out but it is very underused. As mentioned before $30 a head would be very good for North, Melb and Doggies.

Thoughts?

 

[jethro11]

Sounds pretty good. Lots of dees fans would much rather play at olympic park rather than etihad

 

[Gman]

Dockland stadium hand over to the AFL is in 2025


What would it cost for the AFL to pay $$$ and buy out the remaining years?

IMO it would be cheaper than building a large new stadium


This way clubs will be Looked after and the surface will be improved...

 

[Ron The Bear]

2. Skilled Stadium. Bit far out but it is very underused. As mentioned before $30 a head would be very good for North, Melb and Doggies.

I'd travel to Geelong for a Richmond away game against those clubs, but I don't know how many others would.

It's one of the drawbacks of the national competition that games are progressively being taken from the Melbourne football heartland. Once upon a time you couild count on being able to watch your team live 21 times a year in Melbourne - 22 if the Geelong home game was scheduled for Waverley. Traditional supporters are losing more and more games to television, hence we end up with situations like this year's where, in the middle of the season, Richmond went five weeks between Victorian games.

 

[HappyChappy35]

Princess park is the obvious.

Infrastructure already there, parking, serviced by trams. Wouldnt take that much money to get it up to AFL standard.

Couldnt tell me there wouldnt be scope to schedule 8-10 of the lowest drawing games at this ground. i.e low drawing Victorian teams v Freo, Brisbane, GWS, GoldCoast, plus Carlton playing 2 - 3 home games against interstaters.

Running costs would be low, and clubs might actually turn a profit on these games.

Suggested exactly the same thing in another thread. Princes Park is surely the most logical option for another stadium. All Carlton would really need to do is upgrade the capacity to 30,000, install some more bucket seating, some better lighting, and replace that gymnasium thing they built with a modern grandstand, surely wouldn't require too much $$$ to do so.
Carlton could then play their 5-6 home games there per year against interstaters and North. North themselves, along with the Dogs and possibly Melbourne, could then play their 3-4 home games against interstate sides such as Gold Coast, GWS, Port Adelaide and Freo at Optus Oval. Wouldn't be all that difficult I imagine.
On the stadiums topic, full length NAB Cup matches and not just challenge matches should all be played at regional venues such as Skilled Stadium, Princes Park, Ballarat, and so forth. One international NAB Cup match per year should also come into fruition again, with teams/venues to both be annually rotated. Don't see the need to play such NAB Cup matches in front of 10,000 at Etihad when you have venues such as these. If the AFL are as serious about developing grassroots and regional footy as they claim to be, then why don't they get on board this idea?

 

[dan warna]

Waverley was a hole. The AFL moved towards centralised stadiums and crowds boomed, the stadiums were of higher quality, they were located in a more appealing area.

Waverley was a pain to get to, it was in the middle of nowhere and it seemed like a coldest place on earth come game day. A stadium in Dandenong would be unappealing to at least half the population of Melbourne, not to mention that its Dandenong.

True about dandenong, but for everyone in the east of the city waverley was great.

It needed a major revamp being a 1960s stadium (effectively) and pretty much all of the MCG was rebuilt since that period similarly.

TD is more expensive to run than the MCG and waverley, waverley was highly profitable for st kilda and Hawthorn and drew similar crowd numbers to TD.

pretty much 30,000 people brought in 150k profit for the relative clubs as waverley had a BEP of 15,000. TD has a BEP of between 25k and 35k (sunday evening games being the more expensive and the more gates open ie expecting a bigger crowd, the more expensive it is to run).

70k for a saints/collingwood saints home, would bring a profit off the game of in excess of 500k profit for the saints, at gate prices at the time, taking into a account home and away members, afl memberships etc.

45 people at TD brings in a profit of about 400k at todays prices, which are significantly more expensive that 10 years ago.

Had Waverley been upgraded in the same manner and for less than the MCG it would have been a better asset, and used in conjunction with TD.

living in glen waverley/berwick for the 22 out of the last 30 odd years, Waverley was dead easy to get to. Certainly easier than moorabbin, windy hill, MCG, etc etc.

I realise that its harder to get to for people who live in the west, the north and the inner city, but you guys had 5 or 6 stadiums near you back then.

 

[Damon_3388]

What was the official reasoning given for Visy Park not being used for AFL games anymore? Was it just seen as surplus to requirements once Etihad Stadium got properly established? I seem to remember it getting refurbished sometime in the mid-to-late '90s, so it couldn't have been that much out of date or in too bad a state of repair. A friend went to watch a game at Optus Oval (as it was then known) back in 2000, and he thought it was a far better venue than AAMI Stadium was at the time.

 

[Nerv_01]

What was the official reasoning given for Visy Park not being used for AFL games anymore? Was it just seen as surplus to requirements once Etihad Stadium got properly established? I seem to remember it getting refurbished sometime in the mid-to-late '90s, so it couldn't have been that much out of date or in too bad a state of repair. A friend went to watch a game at Optus Oval (as it was then known) back in 2000, and he thought it was a far better venue than AAMI Stadium was at the time.

The AFL and that fu-kwit Ian Collins forced out of there which is ridiculous when you think about the fact they brought in two extra clubs 6 years later. Visy Park would be perfect for games like Melbourne V GC or WCE or GWS, or any North home game would be lucky to draw capacity at Visy. Etihad is the worst sporting arena in Melbourne, this was confirmed on Monday when the sage Robert Walls declared it the best football venue in Australia.

 

[Air_Chester]

For the record, I was originally talking about the idea of a 75,000 seat stadium to be the in-between size of te MCG and Docklands, thus making Docklands somewhat of a boutique stadium in itself, but I very much enjoy the ideas coming out of the thread.

I'd back Melton as well. Not a big fan of the place at all (no offence), but the urban sprawl means that in 5-10 years Melton would be a killer place to house a stadium. They'd wanna be looking into now, though, before 40 different "xyz Lakes" places take the land.

 

[Rob]

The AFL and that fu-kwit Ian Collins forced out of there which is ridiculous when you think about the fact they brought in two extra clubs 6 years later. Visy Park would be perfect for games like Melbourne V GC or WCE or GWS, or any North home game would be lucky to draw capacity at Visy.

FFS, the AFL was petitioned by clubs that were sick of playing home games to **** all crowds there. They forced the AFL to buy out Carlton so that they didn't have to play there anymore.

Go back and look at some of the crowds for games played there. Under 15,000 was almost the norm for non Carlton games, and under 10,000 was pretty common as well. That Princes Park isn't used anymore is purely a club driven initiative. If you want a reason as to why a cheap stadium is a shocking idea, go back and look at why we no longer play there. Melburnians will not show up to 3rd rate venues.

This thread is actually pretty funny given that. Some people genuinely believe that you can take a fixture that would draw 20k at Docklands or the MCG, play it at some shitheap ground in some backward location miles from anywhere, and expect that it would still draw even close to 20k. ****en dreaming.